The resurrection of vocational interests in human resources research and practice: Evidence,challenges, and a working model

A large number of studies conducted over the past two decades reconsidered and supported the validity of vocational interests for predicting a range of important work outcomes. Yet to date, interests remain relatively underused in professional settings, in part because discussions of why, how, and where to use interest assessment tools in an evidence-based manner are lacking and often incomplete. In this article, we briefly review and summarize the available evidence to then further discuss ways in which interest assessment can support various stages of the human resources (HR) cycle, including recruiting, selecting, retaining, and developing employees. From this overview, a number of challenges and apparent paradoxes are derived when working with interests, which may hinder the effective application of these assessments. Therefore, we propose a new working model that treats interest assessments both as “select-out” and “select-in” tools, to identify personal attributes that can either be “must-haves” for an organization in the short term, but at the same time can represent “unique potential” for that organization in the long term. Throughout the text, we also discuss where additional research is needed to further substantiate the use of interests in the HR cycle.     

Patterns of nonverbal behavior among adolescents responding to a formal reasoning task

This study investigated nonverbal behavior patterns of 11 adolescents who responded to the Inhelder-Piaget (1958) balance task, which provides an assessment of proportional reasoning and was the first study of how students behave while being assessed for formal reasoning ability. Interdependency among the precisely defined categories of behavior was found, even when the categories were collapsed on a conceptual basis. Consequences of this categorical interdependency were discussed.     

Depressive thoughts limit working memory capacity in dysphoria

Dysphoria is associated with persistence of attention on mood-congruent information. Longer time attending to mood-congruent information for dysphoric individuals (DIs) detracts from goal-relevant information processing and should reduce working memory (WM) capacity. Study 1 showed that DIs and non-DIs have similar WM capacities. Study 2 embedded depressive information into a WM task. Compared to non-DIs, DIs showed significantly reduced WM capacity for goal-relevant information in this task. Study 3 replicated results from Studies 1 and 2, and further showed that DIs had a significantly greater association between processing speed and recall on the depressively modified WM task compared to non-DIs. The presence of inter-task depressive information leads to DI-related decreased WM capacity. Results suggest dysphoria-related WM capacity deficits when depressive thoughts are present. WM capacity deficits in the presence of depressive thoughts are a plausible mechanism to explain day-to-day memory and concentration difficulties associated with depressed mood.     

Effectiveness of a smartphone-based worry-reduction training for stress reduction: A randomized-controlled trial

Objective: Perseverative cognition (e.g. worry) and unconscious stress are suggested to be important mediators in the relation between stressors and physiological health. We examined whether a smartphone-based worry-reduction training improved a physiological marker of stress (i.e. increased heart rate variability [HRV]) and unconscious stress.

Design: Randomised-controlled trial was conducted with individuals reporting work stress (n = 136). Participants were randomised to the experimental, control or waitlist condition (resp. EC, CC, WL). The EC and CC registered emotions five times daily for four weeks. The EC additionally received a worry-reduction training with mindfulness exercises.

Main Outcome Measures: Primary outcome was 24-h assessments of HRV measured at pre-, mid- and post-intervention. Secondary outcomes were implicit affect and stress. Effects on heart rate and other psychological outcomes were explored.

Results: A total of 118 participants completed the study. No change from pre- to post-intervention was observed for the primary or secondary outcomes. The change over time was not different between conditions.

Conclusion: Findings suggest that the training was ineffective for improving HRV or psychological stress. Future studies may focus on alternative smartphone-based stress interventions, as stress levels are high in society. There is need for easy interventions and smartphones offer possibilities for this.     

Exercise training can improve spatial characteristics of time-critical obstacle avoidance in elderly people

Fall prevention programs have rarely been evaluated by quantitative movement analysis methods. Quantitative movement analyses could provide insight into the mechanisms underlying the effects of training. A treadmill obstacle avoidance task under time pressure has recently been used to evaluate a fall prevention exercise program for community-dwelling elderly people and it showed that participants improved their obstacle avoidance success rates. The mechanism, by which the increased success rates were achieved, however, remained to be determined. Participants were elderly who had fallen at least once in the year prior to participation. They were assigned to either the exercise or the control group. The control group did not receive any specific treatment. The exercise group was administered a five week exercise program, which consisted of exercises on a functionally oriented obstacle course, walking exercises, and practice of fall techniques. Pre- and post-intervention laboratory obstacle avoidance tests were conducted. Three possible determinants of success were investigated, namely avoidance reaction times, the distribution of avoidance strategies, and three spatial parameters (toe distance, foot clearance and heel distance). Analysis yielded significant TimexGroup interactions in heel distances. The exercise group increased heel distance, while the control group did not. Increased heel distance may result in reduced risk of heel contact with the obstacle and, consequently, larger success rates. The remaining parameters showed no effect of training. In conclusion, the training program was effective in improving time-critical obstacle avoidance skills. In every day life, these effects of training may contribute to less obstacle-related fall incidents in elderly. In addition, these findings could indicate that the execution of other time-critical events, like an actual fall, could also be improved by training.     

Offside decisions by expert assistant referees in association football: Perception and recall of spatial positions in complex dynamic events

This study investigated the offside decision-making process in association football. The first aim was to capture the specific offside decision-making skills in complex dynamic events. Second, we analyzed the type of errors to investigate the factors leading to incorrect decisions. Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA; n = 29) and Belgian elite (n = 28) assistant referees (ARs) assessed 64 computer-based offside situations. First, an expertise effect was found. The FIFA ARs assessed the trials more accurately than the Belgian ARs (76.4% vs. 67.5%). Second, regarding the type of error, all ARs clearly tended to raise their flag in doubtful situations. This observation could be explained by a perceptual bias associated with the flash-lag effect. Specifically, attackers were perceived ahead of their actual positions, and this tendency was stronger for the Belgian than for the FIFA ARs (11.0 vs. 8.4 pixels), in particular when the difficulty of the trials increased. Further experimentation is needed to examine whether video- and computer-based decision-making training is effective in improving the decision-making skills of ARs during the game.     

The Role of Separation Anxiety in Mothers’ Use of Autonomy Support: An Observational Study

Parental separation anxiety has been identified as a detrimental factor for parent-adolescent relationship quality and, ultimately, for adolescents’ psychosocial adjustment. However, few studies have examined how separation anxiety is related to parents’ style of interaction with their adolescent, which is unfortunate as this interaction style could explain why separation anxiety is related to negative outcomes. The present study (a) examined the association between maternal separation anxiety and mothers’ autonomy-supportive, relative to controlling, conversation style as observed in mother-adolescent interactions about the adolescents’ friendships, and (b) investigated the link between maternal separation anxiety and mothers’ personal experiences during the conversation. A total of 62 mother–adolescent dyads (M age mothers?=?44 years, M age adolescents?=?14 years) were willing to participate in this study. After mothers filled out a measure of separation anxiety, mothers’ autonomy-supportive and controlling practices were observed and coded during a 10-min conversation. Further, mothers reported on their emotional and motivational experiences during the conversation. Mothers high on separation anxiety were observed to be less autonomy-supportive and to experience the conversation as more stressful (e.g., more pressure, more tension, and more relief at the end). Clinically, our results suggest that maternal separation anxiety is an important target for intervention and prevention efforts aimed at promoting autonomy-supportive parenting.     

Parental psychological control and dimensions of identity formation in emerging adulthood.

Longitudinal data were used to evaluate whether parental psychological control would have a negative impact on identity formation. Perceived psychological control and 4 identity dimensions (i.e., commitment making, exploration in breadth, identification with commitment, and exploration in depth) were assessed 5 times in a college sample. Associations between psychological control and identity (i.e., negative associations with both commitment dimensions and a positive association with exploration in breadth) were stable across time. Further, the developmental pathways of these constructs appeared to be correlated: Increases in psychological control were associated with simultaneous decreases in both commitment dimensions. Finally, reciprocal effects were found: Psychological control inhibited progress in both commitment dimensions, whereas exploration in breadth led to increased psychological control. The authors have provided suggestions for helping emerging adults to approach the task of identity formation.     

The intergenerational transmission of empathy-related responding in adolescence: the role of maternal support

This study proposed and tested an integrated model of the intergenerational transmission of empathy-related responding in adolescence. This model included maternal support as a mediator of the intergenerational transmission of empathy and examined friendship quality as an outcome of adolescent empathy. In a sample of middle adolescents and their mothers (N = 177), maternal support significantly predicted the empathy dimensions perspective taking and sympathy and mediated the mother-child concordance of perspective taking but not sympathy. Adolescent empathy (and perspective taking in particular) predicted adolescent friendship quality and served as an intervening variable in the relation between maternal support and friendship quality. Implications of the present study for research on the socialization of empathy-related responding and social adjustment in general are outlined.